Panasonic has Kinect-like system for digital signage

[CEATEC 2010] In a discrete part of the CEATEC show, Panasonic was showing its D-Imager (D for “depth”, we guess), a system that can detect and react to the presence of people. Thanks to its depth and color cameras, it can see that someone is around and know where they are in relation to itself. We don’t think that Panasonic is using a human skeleton like Kinect does (brilliantly), so we will have to see just how smart it is if/when deployed in the field. That said, it should be good enough to detect presence and sense height, or even gender (Intel showed a demo like that, so it can definitely be done). The D-Imager is also significantly bigger than its gaming cousin. The hardware seems close enough to the Microsoft stuff that when Microsoft puts Kinect in Windows, maybe Panasonic can use it directly instead of writing their own software.